Two days later, on the Wednesday evening, Edwin was in his new bedroom,
overlooking his father's garden, with a glimpse of the garden of Lane
End House. His chamber, for him, was palatial, and it was at once the
symbol and the scene of his new life. A stranger entering would have
beheld a fair-sized room, a narrow bed, two chairs, an old-fashioned
table, a new wardrobe, an old dressing-table, a curious carpet and
hearthrug, low bookshelves on either side of the fireplace, and a few
prints and drawings, not all of them framed, on the distempered walls.
A stranger might have said in its praise that it was light and airy.
But a stranger could not have had the divine vision that Edwin had.
Edwin looked at it and saw clearly, and with the surest conviction, that
it was wonderful. He stood on the hearthrug, with his back to the
hearth, bending his body concavely and then convexly with the idle easy
sinuousness of youth, and he saw that it was wonderful. As an organic
whole it was wonderful. Its defects were qualities. For instance, it
had no convenience for washing; but with a bathroom a few yards off, who
would encumber his study (it was a study) with washing apparatus? He
had actually presented his old ramshackle washstand to the attic which
was to be occupied by Mrs Nixon's niece, a girl engaged to aid her aunt
in the terrible work of keeping clean a vast mansion.
And the bedroom could show one or two details that in a bedroom were
luxurious. Chief of these were the carpet, the hearthrug, and the
table. Edwin owed them to a marvellous piece of good fortune. He had
feared, and even Maggie had feared, that their father would impair the
practical value and the charm of the new house by parsimony in the
matter of furniture. The furniture in the domestic portion of the old
dwelling was quite inadequate for the new one, and scarcely fit for it
either. Happily Darius had heard of a houseful of furniture for sale at
Oldcastle by private treaty, and in a wild, adventurous hour he had
purchased it, exceedingly cheap. Edwin had been amazed at his luck (he
accepted the windfall as his own private luck) when he first saw the
bought furniture in the new house, before the removal. Out of it he had
selected the table, the carpet, and the rug for his bedroom, and none
had demurred. He noticed that his father listened to him, in affairs of
the new house, as to an individuality whose views demanded some trifle
of respect. Beyond question his father was proving himself to possess a
mind equal to the grand situation. What with the second servant and the
furniture, Edwin felt that he would not have to blush for the house, no
matter who might enter it to spy it out. As for his own room, he would
not object to the Sunday seeing it. Indeed he would rather like the
Sunday to see it, on his next visit. Already it was in nearly complete
order, for he had shown a singular, callous disregard for the progress
of the rest of the house: against which surprising display of
selfishness both Maggie and Mrs Nixon had glumly protested. The truth
was that he was entirely obsessed by his room; it had disabled his
conscience.
When he had oscillated on his heels and toes for a few moments with his
gaze on the table, he faced about, and stared in a sort of vacant
beatitude at the bookshelves to the left hand; those to the right hand
were as yet empty. Twilight was deepening.
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